


The Continuing Mistake

by Liquid_Ink



Category: Civilization (Video Games)
Genre: Politics, Science Fiction, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8294753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Ink/pseuds/Liquid_Ink
Summary: Centuries after the Seeding, the colonies have fallen into a state of unending war as ideological alliances struggle to enforce their view of what humanity should be. This story follows three soldiers of the Purity Alliance, fighting to keep humanity tied to its roots.





	1. Ambush

Out in the blistering desert, a platoon of Apostle soldiers marched with great haste. Their invasion had been broken up, and the Supreme Command had given orders to withdraw back to their own territory. The particular path they had chosen took them through a derelict settlement within a valley. Many had private objections to this location, but they did not voice them. They believed their enemy to be behind them in pursuit. They ignored their suspicions of being watched.

‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’ said Mclusky.

Harding gave him a jab with his rifle butt. ‘Quiet, or they’ll hear you.’

‘I’m sorry, but I’m so excited. I wanna to kill me some damn cyborgs.’

The Apostles entered the settlement. Mclusky asked if he could shoot them. Harding scolded him again. He asked Valdés for updates from the radio. The order to fire had not been given. They had to wait until the Apostles were dead centre in the settlement.

Mclusky leaned forwards.  Harding pulled him back.

‘What?’

‘They’ll see you. Keep yourself and that damn gun in the shade.’

‘Why? It’s beige and grey, the same colour as literally everything in this place. Perfect camo.’

‘And the red and white highlights?’

‘They won’t see that.’

‘They’ll hear you if you don’t shut up,’ snapped  Valdés.

Mclusky grumbled, but did what he was told. The Apostles wandered forwards. A few of them glanced upwards at the derelicts buildings, searching for the ambush they theorised. Their bionic eyes could easily see into the darkness, but couldn’t clear the glare of the sunset. The Puritanic Centurions remained hidden.

‘We’ve got new orders,’ said Valdés. ‘ Two of them are rangers. Kill them first.’

The Apostles walked through the town square. The two Executor rangers swung their enormous guns around in a boredom the Puritans didn’t know a cyborg could have.

‘Fire!’

A barrage of red light flashed from every dark corner of the settlement. Each stuck one of the two executors, whose metal exoskeletons melted and meaty innards baked. The Apostle soldiers took cover. While waiting for them to enter the town square ensured they were surrounded, the Apostles now had the square’s décor to use as cover. They returned fire; yellow streaks of plasma competing with the Centurions’ own red lasers.

Mclusky was having the time of his life. Whereas Harding was patiently waiting to pop any Apostle that stuck his head out, Mclusky was firing wildly all over the square. Harding growled at him to calm down. This amused Valdés greatly, as it was Mclusky that was following the orders more closely. The Centurions had been told to lay down suppressive fire. Mclusky was keeping them suppressed.

On the mountain slopes of either side of the settlement, two squads of Warden rangers prepared their weapons. The technology built into these launchers, coupled with the knowledge of physics and geometry all rangers were required to know meant that the grenades about to be hurled into the settlement would only kill Apostles, and none of the Centurions.

Harding managed to kill an Apostle who had attempted to make a run for it. Mclusky’s fire had knocked over the fountain and squashed two of them. He was leaning out the window now, daring the Apostles to fire at him. Valdés sat back with the radio. As the Wardens reported ready to fire, he pulled Mclusky back inside. He struggled out from Valdés’ grip, just as the sound of explosions rumbled from the window.

Grenades burst in the middle of the square behind the Apostles, releasing waves of energy that flash-fried the Apostles from the inside out. Those that survived the barrage were gunned down trying to flee by the hidden Centurions. Harding managed to get one. A squad moved out from cover into the square, and confirmed all Apostles to be dead.

‘Woohoo! Victory!’ said Mclusky. ‘Now what?’

Harding asked Valdés if Command was giving new orders. Valdés pointed out that Command was only just being notified of their success, and that they would have to wait. Harding and Mclusky then began critiquing every other soldier in the settlement. Eventually Valdés received news.

‘Okay guys, Command says satellites confirm no further enemy forces heading our way.’

Harding praised this news, while Mclusky lamenting a lack of potential killing.

‘So what do we do now?’ asked Harding.

‘Command says to wait here. We’re going to launch a counter-invasion of the Supremacy Alliance. A battalion is on its way to pick us up.’


	2. Battalion

The Apostle corpses were all gathered up, their human components removed and cremated, and their mechanical components piled up for recycling. The Centurions relaxed and began eating and drinking. They all chattered amongst themselves, comparing their prowess in combat and theorising on what plans Command had for the invasion.

‘The machines are made of cardboard. We’re going to burn through them right to their capital, peel the machinery right off that century old bitch, and be back in time for Santamas,’ said one. There were many shouts of approval.

‘I can’t wait to kill more cyborgs,’ shouted Mclusky. ‘This is gonna be a great opportunity to rack up my kill count.’ There were many shouts of approval.

‘I hear they’re going to send a LEV Destroyer,’ said Valdés. There was a unanimous shout of approval.

‘With a Destroyer with us, the Supremacists will be ripped to shreds!’ shouted someone. ‘Mandira will be ours!’ There were many shouts of approval.

‘What about the other half of the Supremacists?’ asked Harding. The patriotic vitriol ended, and a far more serious discussion occurred. It was agreed that the ocean was far too dangerous to expand that far without much more planning and preparing.

‘You ruin all the fun, Harding,’ said Mclusky.

‘No, no, no,’ said the man who first spoke. ‘I think he raised a very good point.’

Valdés pointed to the horizon. There was a plume of dust on the horizon. A look through their helmets’ zoom function revealed it to be a fleet of LEV transports. A light cheer went through the crowd.

As the transports came closer, they noticed that the emblems on the side were not those of the American Reclamation Corporation, but of the Commonwealth of the Pacific. This wasn’t anything but a minor interesting fact. Both entities were of the Purity Alliance; their divisions were ceremonial at best. It was true that most Polystralians couldn’t speak Spanish, and most Americans couldn’t speak Indonesian, but English served as a sufficient language for all Puritans to communicate.

The transports arrived, and their troop compliments poured out. They were led by three Battlesuits. Their insignia’s specified they belonged to a unit named “Warren’s Warlords”. Their leader, Colonel Warren herself, met with the platoon in the settlement. They saluted her.

‘You’ve done good work here. Your actions, and those of others across the desert, will ensure the Supremacist army remains crippled for our upcoming attack.’ There were many shouts of approval. ‘We will remove their mechanical blight from this land, as we will to all degenerates that sully the human name. We will expand our glorious terrascapes, and make this planet suitable for proper human life. We will prevail, for the president, for Purity, and above all, for the Promise.’ There were many shouts of approval.

‘I felt that speech was a little lacklustre,’ said Mclusky.

‘She’s a soldier, not a politician,’ Valdés pointed out.

One of the transports opened up, and out came a dozen or so civilians in red and white jumpsuits, followed by construction mechsuit. Harding enquired about them.

‘Oh, them? The government sent them to revive this settlement,’ said Warren. ‘They mentioned a research project of some sort, but they didn’t give us any details. That reminds me: if there are any of you who want to volunteer for babysitting, please step forward.’ Laughter and condescension swept throughout the crowd.

Harding gazed at his fellow soldiers, gazed at the Colonel, and turned and gazed at the civilians marching into the settlement. He took a step toward Warren, but Mclusky stopped him.

‘Hey man, where you going?’ asked Mclusky.

‘I was going to volunteer to guard the civilians.’

‘What? Why?’

‘This invasion will not end well. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. A proper invasion requires years of planning, not a “rally the troops, it’s invasion time!” They’re going to cripple our army the way we crippled theirs.’

‘Harding, you’re a Centurion in the Puritan Army. Do you know what that means?’

‘A civilisation whose ideology necessitates making nostalgic references to the past misinterpreted a rank in an Old Earth army by using it to refer to common footsoldiers when it was actually intended to refer to officers?’

‘Uh… no. It means that you’re worth a hundred times more than the enemy’s little minions. So with ten thousand of us marching upon them, who could stand a chance?’

‘Magical thinking like that is what’s going to get people killed.’

Mclusky paused for a moment, giving a conceding nod. ‘But… logical thinking like yours could save a lot of lives. So don’t squander it here.’

Harding put his hand on Mclusky’s shoulder and nodded. They and Valdés joined the others, boarding the transports to be shipped into Supremacy territory.


	3. Magrail

The transports left the settlement and began moving south, following the retreat of the Supremacy army. Several Dragoon armoured fighting vehicles protected them from surprise attack No Supremacist units were encountered; they had already either retreated or were caught by the Puritan army.

The transports did not have windows, but a few camera images were available to the soldiers being transported. Mclusky watched their progress on one. It wasn’t particularly interesting. Hundreds of vehicles moving through a desert. It would be hours before they reached something interesting.

Harding and Valdés both perused the mission briefing, on how to survive in the fungal biomes. The Purity Alliance had purged the fungal biomes from their territory and replaced it with an Earth-like “lush” landscape. They did not pay attention to the briefing on the Supremacist arsenal, but did look over their city defences. They were seasoned centurions, and had been trained in all of this, but only had experience as defenders and had never been outside the terrasphere.

‘Hey guys,’ said Mclusky. ‘The sand is getting all purple.’

The others switched over to the camera footage. The desert was indeed turning from yellow to lavender. They were moving from the arid biome of the eastern Alliance, into the fungal biome outside Purity territory. The change in colouration was due to yeast powder mixing with the sand.

‘That looks pretty concerning,’ said Valdés. ‘We’re not at the official border yet. The yeast is encroaching on us.’

‘Surely the biomes are stable? Except for one we made, they were here long before humans arrived on this planet,’ said Harding.

‘Perhaps it has been happening before humans arrived? The desert could once have been much larger.’

‘Can’t we get some sort of shield against it?’

‘It’s too expensive. The economy is geared totally towards the war, there isn’t time or money for terraforming.’

‘Another reason why we need to win this war quickly,’ said another soldier.

‘Hey, our transport is moving towards the front of the convoy,’ said Mclusky. The reason became apparent very soon: they were approaching a magrail station, and their squad was one of those chosen to capture it.

The Dragoons had wiped out the external fortifications previously. Three transports opened up and poured their Centurion compliments out into the wreckage. Apostles fired at them from the windows of the station’s upper floor. The Centurions weaved their way to the entrance, and blew it open with a few expertly placed explosives.

The Centurions stormed the facility, purging it of the Apostles. The first floor was cleared. They attempted to storm the stairway, but found it already fortified. Several Centurions were killed. A crew broke open the elevator shaft, and several climbed up to the second floor. They burst open the second floor’s doors and lobbed grenades in. They were able to enter and clear the second floor from the elevator shaft, and from there they broke through the stair fortifications. Within a few minutes the Centurions had stormed the third floor and purged the entire station.

A crew was placed into the station to operate it, and cranes began loading the Puritan transports onto the magrail. The transport Harding’s team was in was the fifth to be loaded. It would take a while for every vehicle to be loaded, but it would allow their transports to speed ahead much faster than they normally could.

The transports sped along the magrail, moving into Supremacy territory. Harding and Valdés went back to the briefings, while Mclusky watched the outside footage. With their speed, it wasn’t long until the desert turned into mushroom forests, which the magrail towered over.

‘Now that we’re outside Purity territory, are we going to be attacked by aliens?’ ask Mclusky.

‘Maybe. You’ve trained in fighting them haven’t you? It’s not an issue. Besides, we’ll be fighting mostly around Supremacy cities, which have the same ultrasonic defences we have,’ answered Valdés.

‘Where are we heading, then?’

‘This particular regiment is joining up with a couple others to conquer the city of Dhanya. A smaller Kavithan city, not one of note, but we can’t let any cyborg hordes escape. We’ll occupy the city until a proper occupational force arrives, after which we’ll head out to help capture the bigger cities.’

‘Nice. Will we be sent to capture Mandira?’

‘If you live that long. You should read the briefings.’

Mclusky was very happy about his future, as the Purity army sped towards its prey.


	4. Invasion

As the battalion sped towards the Supremacy cities, the Purity Air Force was already moving ahead of them with its Predator tactical jets. The Supremacy Air Force hadn’t yet responded to the intrusion of their airspace, so the Predators preoccupied themselves with aerial surveillance. They watched the transports moving across the magrail towards Dhanya. From their height, they could see Dhanya itself. On their sensors, they could see the armies of Supremacy moving in to defend themselves.

The LEV transports disengaged themselves from the magrail. This was much easier than getting on, as this segment wasn’t as high, and the transports could just float to the ground gently. The transports opened and released the Centurions. They had reached the absolute outskirts of Dhanya; the farms and generators and such that fuel the city. Harding’s team was deployed near an enormous robotics manufactory. The orders coming through were that all Centurions were to capture and fortify whatever structures they could find and hold off the Supremacy army until heavy reinforcements arrived.

They stormed the manufactory. Security there was not military and were quickly culled. The workers were forced to end the production and were sealed in the lower levels, awaiting eventual purification. All entrances were sealed and reinforced. The Centurions positioned themselves at the windows of the facility. Spotters began looking for the Supremacy army. Redeemer combat rovers hovered over the hill, followed by many Apostles. The Centurions fired upon the Apostles while a company of Dragoons took on the Redeemers.

‘They’re trying to get through the main entrance!’ shouted Mclusky. The sounds of brutal smashing came from the other side of the giant doors. A thud, like one of the Redeemers shooting at it. Several Centurions took positions near the entrance to fight off intruders.

Someone was shot. The Apostles had used the clatter as a distraction. They were now climbing in through the abandoned windows. Their vile mechanical bodies were crawling, spider-like, into the manufactory. The Centurions had to reposition themselves to contain the breach, leaving even more windows unattended. The Centurions took position on the stairs around the Apostle incursion. Several minutes of fighting ensured, before it was realised that no more Apostles were coming through. The Centurions pushed back and retook their positions.

Outside, the Dragoons had eliminated Supremacist resistance, and were pushing forward. The Centurions gave a cheer of victory, just before a giant laser from the sky vapourised the entire armoured division. The Puritans hit the ground, praying that the Supremacist Space Force was unaware that the manufactory was occupied. Mclusky dared peer out the window to see what was happened. More forces in the distance were being destroyed by the lasers. A LEV Tank nearby took aim with a specialised laser cannon and fired into the sky. Nobody could see it, but a thousand kilometres above them the Orbital Laser was skewered by the energy projectile.

Orbital bombardment ceased, and more Dragoons were able to join the LEV Tank. Colonel Warren and her fellow Battlesuit soldiers also entered the fray, pushing forward.

‘We’re getting orders to advance,’ said Valdés. The Centurions left the manufactory (except for a few guards watching the prisoners) and followed the rest of the army. Then ran over the hills, across a river, and through farmland. They didn’t see any targets, as the Dragoons were dealing with them from greater range. A large building, a monolithic grey brick of a construct, loomed in the distance.

‘What the hell is that?’ asked Harding.

‘It’s a Supremacy Node,’ said Colonel Warren. ‘They’re the centre of the Supremacist’s computing power. We’re trying to capture as many as we can.’

The Node was heavily defended, and the Centurions finally had something to shoot. Two SABRs guarded it, and took several Dragoons to bring down. Despite heavy fortifications of reinforced titanium and energy shields, the defences were overrun within minutes.

‘Don’t damage the node! We need the information it carries intact!’ shouted Warren, far later than she really ought to. Nobody had damaged it, but several tanks had shot at it.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the Node had an entrance meant for humans, so the Centurions shuffled in through a ventilator shaft. Harding led the expedition. They found walkways, and more Apostles guarding the inside. They hadn’t expected anyone to enter, so the Centurions caught them off guard. They searched around for some way to shut off the power. There was absolutely no reference to go on, so they assumed the thick orange tube in the centre might have been related, and severed it. The lights went out, and the team had to retreat with night-vision.

They were currently dealing with things they didn’t understand. Their pure human minds could only grasp the basic concept of the Node’s function, not the full implications of it. They knew not what they had done, but it belonged to the Supremacists, and they had shut it off. They left the Node feeling that they had hurt Supremacy, if only a little. Outside the war continued, and Dhanya had been softened for the killing blow.


	5. Siege

Over the next few days, the Purity army continued to move in and occupy Dhanya’s surrounding environs. Farms, mines, and factories, and so on. A great many citizens of the Supremacy Alliance were apprehended, and had been relocated to repurposed manufactories awaiting purification. The bulk of the Supremacy defences had been defeated, and the remainder had gathered to fortify the city itself.

Harding and his squad had taken cover in a cleared out academy. They attached sniper scopes to their rifles and took position at the windows of a faculty office facing the city. It was a distance of several kilometres, so actually hitting the city’s guards was difficult.

‘This really isn’t a job for precision rifles,’ complained Harding. ‘We need automatic weapons to hit them at this range.’

‘You’re just upset that you haven’t killed anyone, while I’ve gotten four— five of them,’ said Mclusky.

‘Yeah, well you’re a freak. Seriously, _they_ have automatic weapons,’ Harding said as a spray of yellow plasma seared the walls. The superheated gases sizzled too close to Harding than was comfortable. The paint was melting off his armour. At least none of the Centurions were hit. Colonel Warren was hit several times, but her Battlesuit could withstand a mortar shell. She and her other Battlesuit operators were in fact on the roof, deliberately drawing fire away from the less-armoured infantry. The logic in this tactic was debatable, but it was happening anyway.

A much larger glob of yellow plasma arced through the air from deeper in the city. Harding kept his eye on it, to make sure it wasn’t going to fall on them. Several more were fired into the air. None hit the academy, but detonating discomfortingly close by. Similar artillery fire, but red, flew into the city in return. The real battle here was between artillery: Supremacy Ambassador artillery platforms against Purity Devastators.  Rangers, both Executors and Wardens, provided a smaller version of this fight.

‘ The LEV Destroyer is about to open fire,’ said  Valdés.

‘ Oh, can we see it?,’ said Mclusky.

‘No, pay attention to the enemy,’ said Harding.

Colonel Warren, speaking over radio, advised the Centurions to prepare to make a run for the city. The distance concerned them, but they obeyed their orders and left the building, readying themselves under cover around the Academy walls.

A hail of red plasma orbs fell onto the fortified city, detonating and totally erasing the surrounding walls from view. Warren gave the order to advance into the city as a massive cloud of dust enveloped the area. Their powered armour provided them with the stamina to run for several kilometres, though they slowed their pace once they entered the dust cloud. Metal and concrete rubble had been sprayed every. Bits of machinery and human body parts were scattered amongst it.

The Centurions continued until they found the remains of the wall. Apostles wandered about dazed, and were easily picked off.  The Centurions moved into the city under the cover of the dust, and were able to worm into the intact fortifications, where they began culling the Supremacy personnel. Harding, Mclusky, and  Valdés  pushed directly forwards into the city.

They came to  a collapsed building, and found themselves facing down an old CNDR. The robot saw them and immediately began setting down suppressing fire.

‘I thought the briefing said these things were outdated!’ shouted Harding.

Upon hearing that, Mclusky tried firing a few shots at it. Either he missed or it shrugged off his weapon, because it continued laying suppressing fire unhindered. Mclusky commented that it must be an outdated design that simply didn’t need improving.

They took cover waiting for assistance. It arrived in the form of Colonel Warren charging straight at the CNDR, and smashed the machine to pieces with her bayonet.

‘I never knew that thing was functional,’ said  Valdés. ‘ I thought it was ceremonial; to make the gun more intimidating or something.’

Mclusky doubted the merit of melee weapons  in an age of directed energy weapons and guided projectiles, but Harding simply pointed out that a “meritless” weapon had just saved their lives.  Mclusky countered that Warren could have just shot the CNDR from a distance.

The Colonel herself interrupted this conversion, and instructed the three to follow her.  They moved through a city street until they discovered the location of three  Ambassador artillery platforms. Warren ordered the three soldiers to hand her their radio transmitters. She made an adjustment to them, and instructed that they be carefully thrown underneath the Ambassadors before returning to her.

Each of them chose an individual Ambassador. They noticed that there was nothing guarding the artillery, which concerned them. Was it a trap? Or was the Supremacy military really stretched that thin?  Either way, they had no difficulty throwing their transmitters under the Ambassadors. When they returned to Warren, she sent a signal over her own radio, before backing away and  taking cover behind rubble.

After a minute, the Ambassadors were decimated by artillery fire, from the Purity Devastators no doubt.

‘This will weaken the city’s defences,’ said the Colonel. ‘We’ll have it occupied in no time.’


	6. Occupation

Fighting in the streets continued for another couple of days, until the city of Dhanya was completely under Purity control. The bulk of the civilians were all relocated to the purification camps set up in the outskirts of the city, methodically having their cancerous cybernetics removed and their humanity restored. A garrison of soldiers was left in the city to manage it until a proper army of occupation could arrive.

Harding, Mclusky, and Valdés had been chosen by Colonel Warren to stay in the city, as a “reward” for helping her take down the artillery, though they would much rather have continued front line fighting. Maybe Polystralians have a different definition of a reward?

The three of them were escorting a group of Supremacy citizens that had either been found to lack cybernetics or had previously been purified through the deserted streets.

‘So where are we taking these people?’ asked Mclusky.

‘To the organ printer,’ said Harding. We’re going to put them to work replicating organs for the purification camps.’

‘I thought we brought organ replicators with us?’

‘Those were only good for a few rounds. Enough to purify this lot and put them to work.’

The organ printer was not an impressive building. It was a geometric grey metal structure, much like the rest of the city. The inside of the building was somewhat more impressive, with numerous machines connected with tubes to sacks of bizarre fluids. It was totally undamaged by the recent fighting in the city, due to the immense durability of Supremacy architecture. The three Centurions put the citizens to work, replicating entire bodies of organs (though not together as a cloned human) to be packaged and shipped out to the purification camps.

The three kept watch for several hours, until a few other Centurions came to relieve them.

‘Lieutenant Turner wants you guys to investigate the CEL Cradle,’ said one of their replacements. ‘There’s been a disturbance there and they believe there might be more cyborgs hiding out there.’

‘Alright, we’ll check it out,’ said Harding. ‘Where is the CEL Cradle exactly?’

‘Well it’s down near the big, grey… yeah just upload the map onto your HUD. This city is a maze.’

Harding took Mclusky and Valdés back into the streets and began a trip down several streets. It was totally deserted.

‘Where is everybody? Isn’t this place meant to be occupied? It was crawling with our troops this morning.’

‘That’s when we were taking all the cyborgs for the camps, and before the bulk of us went to the next city.’

They moved along a street with a few craters and shattered buildings from the shelling. Most bomb damaged occurred around the rim, but the inner city took some blows as well. They saw a fallen billboard depicting Kavitha Thakur, co-leader of the Supremacy Alliance, original leader of the Kavithan colony. Rumours of natural extreme longevity not withstanding, she and Kozlov were the only known original sponsor leaders known to be still alive, thanks to their cybernetics giving them unnaturally long life.

The CEL Cradle was a very large building that housed countless chambers, all circular and containing a large mechanical brain build with firaxite circuitry surrounded by seating. The Centurions patrolled the halls of the facility, searching for anything out of place. As they searched through a server room, Valdés held his hand up to signal for silence. They listened, and they heard something crawling about above them.

‘That must be a group of people hiding out,’ whispered Harding.

‘It could be a large, centipede-ish robot,’ added Mclusky.

‘Possibly. Whatever it is, it could be trying to sabotage the CEL Cradle. Trying to stop us from gaining its information,’ said Valdés.

They immediately climbed the nearest flight of stairs. Valdés took point. As he opened the door, a robot sprung at him. It was not “centipede-ish” but spidery. It hurled a grey blob of something at Valdés, who fell from the force of it. Harding immediately fired at the machine, destroying it. He turned back to Valdés, to see the grey slop sizzling all over his armour.

‘Nanobots! Quickly, zap them!’

Valdés gave off an electric discharge from his armour. The nanobots ceased sizzling and lay still. As Mclusky helped Valdés to his feet, it fell off him as a fine dust.

‘Is your suit still airtight? I hear that stuff will shred your lungs.’

Valdés’ suit was eroded, but hadn’t been penetrated. Nanobots were actually fairly inefficient as weaponry.

‘That was a maintenance robot,’ said Harding. ‘Throwing nanobots at people isn’t normal for it. Somebody’s reprogrammed it.’

They continued through the darkened hallways and cradle-rooms, weapons ready for another ambush. There was a click. Only Mclusky heard it, and he lead them down a corridor to investigate. They found the closed doors of an elevator. The power was out, so they pried it open. The elevator was only hallway up into that floor, and on top of it they discovered a cabal of Supremacy citizens.

Valdés called for an additional squad over the radio, while Harding and Mclusky marched the cyborgs out of the building onto the more spacious and well lit streets. There, the Supremacists were made to unclothe, to determine the severity of their cybernetics and if any were pure. A backup squad arrived in a truck to take the cyborgs to a purification camp. They shuffled along, about to have their lives drastically reduced to a fraction of their former selves. Harding and his team moved to continue searching the CEL Cradle, beaming with the delusion that they had, somehow, done something right.


	7. ANGEL

A proper army of occupation arrived to take charge of Dhanya, so Harding, Mclusky, Valdés, and the rest of their compatriots were moved back towards the front. Many Supremacy cities had been taken, and the Purity army was still moving forward. The soldiers now heading out from Dhanya had been told they were going to besiege Vasanta, but Lieutenant Turner informed them that all divisions had been ordered to converge upon the Kavithan capital of Mandira.

‘Oh no...’ whispered Harding.

‘What’s up?’ asked Mclusky.

‘Something’s gone wrong. We’re about to start losing.’ Harding was still whispering. Defeatism was an offence, after all.

‘What are you talking about? We’re about to attack their capital!’

‘It’s a desperate charge to decapitate them. Command must have been spooked by something, so they’re pushing for a quicker resolution.’

The transports deployed them on the outskirts of the city. Mandira was visible on the horizon: tall grey spires sticking into the sky, with a yellow glow making it stand out against the night sky. Streaks of weapons fire were visible even from this distance. Predator and Seraph tacjets fought each other in the sky. The Centurions had barely enough time to take this in before they had to take cover from artillery fire. When the barrage stopped, they moved downhill into a small gully.

A line of Apostles came over the ridge ahead. They took the Centurions by surprise, but two Wardens were able to break the Apostle line, and Purity troops were bale to push over the hill. Ahead were heavily entrenched Supremacy positions guarding a bridge. The Wardens attempted to bombard them, but were hit by grenades themselves. The Centurions used the ridge for cover and made furtive attempts to gun down the Apostles manning the fortifications.

Valdés requested support from a nearby armoured division. Two Dragoons moved in from the south, and bombarded the fortifications. They ripped the metal barricades to shreds, sending the Apostles scurrying. The Dragoons moved forward, but were destroyed by an artillery shell from somewhere beyond the bridge. The explosions flung great deals of smoke and dust into the air, and the Centurions used that opportunity to run towards the bridge. They entered the fortifications and killed the Apostles, who were still stunned by how close their own artillery was shooting at them.

The fortifications were quickly repositioned to protect the Centurions from attack from the other side of the bridge. Harding and his team took armour off the ruined Dragoons, and were able to rescue a surviving but heavily wounded pilot in the process.

The bridge was a complicated structure. It was a suspension bridge with two distinct levels, and varying catwalks, roads, and magrails for transport. It crossed over a deep ravine with river running through it. The ravine ran for longer than they could see in that lighting, and Valdés noted that it was going to be an important chokepoint.

Apostles pushed in from the other side, and several barricades were erected across the bridge. Fighting broke out across the bridge, vying for control. The Purity forces were able to push towards the other side, until the forward pushing soldiers were blown to pieces. The Supremacy army had fortified their side with a line of CARVR battle robots, and were beginning to push back. The CARVRs used explosive weaponry, which did not harm the bridge structure.

Valdés, operating his radio, confirmed that Command had designated the bridge a vital strategic point, and were sending in reinforcements. Several Battlesuit soldiers and an Aegis arrived to reinforce the Purity position. A CARVR was brought down by heavy weapons fire, and two more had to take cover. Harding made sure to note where they had hidden, and Valdés reported these locations to everyone.

Two Battlesuits and the Aegis pushed forward, cornering another CARVR and destroying it. A high energy bolt hit a battlesuit soldier in their visor, killing them. Harding and Mclusky saw the Apostle that had fired the shot and lay suppressing fire upon his position. The remaining Battlesuit soldier and the Aegis moved towards the third CARVR’s location. The Battlesuit soldier was impaled by an armour piercing round. The CARVR had since moved itself to ambush anything searching for it. The Aegis turned around and grappled with the robot. The Aegis was able to push the CARVR to the ground. The Purity forces cheered, right up until the point that the CARVR flipped the Aegis over and off the edge of the bridge.

Rage swelled in the Centurions, and they concentrated all their fire upon the CARVR. The machine fired back, but after a full minute it slumped over, half melted. The Centurions pushed forward, but saw more CARVRs lining up on the other side of the bridge. They retook their fortified positions and prepared to fight them once again.

All around them battle waged on. The sound of artillery and airstrikes rumbled through the air. There was a constant pounding sound nobody could identify. Fires had broken out in shelled positions and were filling the air with smoke. The only thing plainly visible was the advance of the CARVRs upon the bridge.

The first CARVR to step on the bridge was shattered by two heavy blasts. From the Purity side, five LEV Tanks ploughed forward, ripping the CARVRs to shreds. The Centurions began following the tanks to the other side. The first tank managed to cross the bridge, when a rocket out from the distance smashed it to pieces. The pounding noise had stopped. A small gap in the smoke revealed a gargantuan robotic form.

In the midst of battle, and Supremacy ANGEL had marched its way to the front. The Centurions backed away to their cover. The tanks fires their cannons at the ANGEL. It shrugged it all off and launched a barrage of rockets, that smashed the tanks to nothing. The suspension cables began to snap.

The Centurions realised what was about to happen, and began running for their side. The ANGEL fired upon all the suspension and supports of the bridge. The sheer strength of the metallurgy was not enough to save the structure, and the bridge buckled under its own weight, sending several tons of debris and a platoon of Centurions tumbling into the ravine.


	8. Supremacy

Harding woke up on a river bank. It was morning. He looked up to see an Aegis administering nanite medication to a great many Centurions strewn across the river bank. He wondered how the Aegis survived falling off the bridge, before realising it was a different one. He and other Centurions surviving was a more easily explained matter of their armour having high-speed impact resistance, and tumbling across the side of the ravine. And luck. Many Centurions without luck remained face down in the water.

‘Hey Harding, you’re awake,’ said Mclusky, wandering from amongst other dazed soldiers. ‘What happened?’

‘We were on the bridge… the ANGEL blew it up. We fell… we must have been knocked unconscious and drifted down here.’

‘Sounds about right. Do you have any idea where “here” is?’

Harding looked around. The river bank was near a fungal forest. There wasn’t any sign of civilisation beyond the rubble drifting down the river.

‘I hope we haven’t drifted too far from the battle. They could be missing vital fireteams to break the enemy line.’

‘We can’t have gone that far– oh, that Aegis didn’t fall with us. I’ll go ask the pilot where they came from. You go see if you can find Valdés.’

Harding helped the other Centurions to their feet, subtle inspecting their name tags looking for Valdés. He hauled a few of the bodies onto the bank and likewise inspected them. Valdés wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Mclusky returned from speaking with the Aegis.

‘Okay, apparently a couple of us woke up long before we did and found the company the Aegis was with. They’re positioned a little way east from here.’

‘Is Valdés with them? I couldn’t find him.’

‘I hope so.’

After everybody was on their feet, the Aegis gathered them up to take back to his company. They just began walking when somebody noticed something in the sky. Looking up, they all saw blue streams of light descending from the sky. The Centurions realised the Supremacy military must have brought in more laser satellites. The streams were followed by a thick beam of light that outshone them all. Moments later, a heavy shockwave rumbled past them.

‘Dear lord, they must have a planet carver up there!’ said Harding. A panicked murmur went through the Centurions, and the Aegis criticises them for it. Surface-to-orbit weaponry would deal with the satellites swiftly, he said.

The Centurions, now all awake and treated, were lead by the Aegis back to its company. In the sky above them, more lasers streaked down to the surface, causing devastation they couldn’t determine. None of them said anything about it, and tried to maintain a decent level of optimism.

Away from the river, in a small canyon, waited the company the Aegis had come from. The group from the river joined the company and were told to wait until they receive the signal to move out. Harding and Mclusky found Valdés at last, and he explained to them that he had woken up before anyone else and had gone to find help for them.

‘I see,’ said Mclusky. ‘So tell me: what are we waiting here for?’

‘We’re waiting for the LEV Destroyer,’ said Valdés. ‘Once we get that we’ll be marching straight into Mandira.’

Harding and Mclusky were excited at the prospect, and such excitement was evident across the company. The sight of the laser satellites failed to depress them anymore. Soon enough, the blue streaks were replaces with little meteors; the satellites burning up after being shot down by the oncoming Destroyer. After a long wait, the glorious looming mass of the LEV Destroyer drifted past the company. They quickly fell in with the regiment following it.

The Destroyer glided through the battlefield with all guns blazing. All Supremacy fortifications were reduced to a mangled slag before it, with fleeing units picked off by the Purity army. Seraph tac-jets were butchered by its anti-aircraft defences. Its artillery canons caused untold devastation across Mandira’s defences. Its armour withstood everything the Supremacists could throw at it, and its domineering mass distracted all Supremacist units from attacking the more vulnerable Purity units surrounding it. There was only one thing the Supremacists could throw at it that could harm it. Which was converging rapidly.

Across the hillscape covered with burned out fortifications crawled an ANGEL, approaching from the Destroyer’s flank. A second ANGEL approached from the other side, and both were accompanied by legions of Apostles and other Supremacy units. The two armies engaged each other while the ANGELs immediately went after the LEV Destroyer. The Destroyers cannons fired upon the ANGELs, whose armour resisted the laser barrage. The Supremacist superweapons let loose a barrage of missiles, pummelling the Destroyer from all angles. Its armour held, but many of its defence cannons were lost.

On the ground, the Purity armour was holding strong. Harding and his team had taken cover behind a wrecked Redeemer, firing whenever they could at the Supremacy army bearing down on them. A pair of Wardens joined them a lobbed fire over at the enemy. On this side, at least, they were standing strong against the enemy.

The LEV Destroyer turned to face the same ANGEL that Harding’s team faced. It fired its main artillery cannons are extreme close range, skewering the ANGEL. The giant spider-tank staggered back and away from the scene. They couldn’t see if it had been destroyed or not, but what was left of its support army fled with it.

The second ANGEL took full advantage of this, and climbed into way right next to the Destroyer. There it took careful aim and unleashed a torrential downpour of missiles and plasma weapons into a singular point. The Purity army froze in shock as the LEV engine failed and the Destroyer came crashing to the ground.

The collapse shook the ground, and many Centurions lost their footing. The Destroyer unleashed everything it had left into the ANGEL, as did many traumatised Centurions, and the Supremacy behemoth buckled and fell to the ground. A few cheered at this victory, but it was short lived as several explosions ruptured through the Destroyer’s hull. Their ultimate weapon was destroyed, and with it their hope of taking Mandira.

There was panic, and the Purity army was routed. They began to flee. The two Wardens dropped their cannons and ran off in a mad sprint. Mclusky nearly joined them, but Harding placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ shouted Mclusky. ‘The Supremacists will be here to sweep us up any second now.’

‘We can’t just abandon the Destroyer!’ said Harding.

‘It’s already down,’ said Valdés. ‘We can’t save it!’

‘Have you two forgotten what goes into making those things?’ Said Harding. ‘To inspire us to greatness, and to link us to our home, the heart of that machine has an Old Earth artefact. We cannot abandon it to destruction, or the Supremacists.’

Mclusky and Valdés remembered, and agreed. This assault was lost, but they would not lose a symbol of The Promise to the cyborg traitors. The team ran, not with their terrified compatriots, but towards the crashed Destroyer.


	9. LEV Destroyer

The structure of the LEV Destroyer had begun to crumple under its own weight. There was a small ladder that lead into an entry hatch along the side, and Harding, Mclusky, and Valdés climbed their way in. They crawled their way through a narrow tunnel, that eventually led into the corridors of the Destroyer interior. The corridor walls were crumpling, and some plate metal had snapped off the walls. The team headed down the corridor, hoping to find a map. This part of the interior was featureless, uninhabited, and had no apparent purpose beyond access. They weren’t any signs, which was irritating, so the team remembered the general direction in which they came and tried heading in a general inwards direction.

They discovered several chains of missiles, that fed into launchers on the Destroyer’s exterior. Valdés pointed out that it would be prudent to follow it downward to the ammo bays, where there might be better directions. They search down the hall of missiles until they found an access ladder into the depths of the ship.

The lighting went read as they found themselves in the ammunition bays. Several crewmen were scurrying about the room fiddling with the missiles.

Mclusky caught their attention: ‘What are you all still doing here? The Destroyer is down! The Supremacists are upon you, you need to flee!’

One of the crewmen called back: ‘We need to disarm the missiles, so they don’t go off and start a chain reaction!’

‘That won’t be a problem if you evacuate.’

‘But what about the other evacuees? We need to make it safe while they’re preparing an escape!’

‘Shouldn’t they be gone by now?’

‘The captain is taking his time.’

Harding took control of the conversation and demanded one of the crewmen take them to the bridge. One of them agreed and took them out of the bay. The hallways there were more clearly labelled, with lines and arrows on the walls clearly labelled “bridge” among other things. They assured the crewman they could make their own way, and he scuttled back to the ammo bay to try and make a crashed warship rapidly falling behind enemy lines “safe”.

As they headed towards the bridge, there was a strange sound that echoed through the ship. It was a whining noise, distorted by how far it must have travelled.

‘What the hell was that?’ asked Mclusky.

‘It’s the Supremacists. They’ve bored inside the Destroyer.’

‘What for, why don’t they just bomb it?’

‘They probably want to clean us out of it, then recycle it for scrap.’

They arrived at the bridge, where the crew were working at their stations for God-knows what reason. The captain sat in his chair, watching whatever it was they were up to. He noticed the team enter.

‘I thought I ordered you marines out of the ship!’ he said.

‘We’re not part of your marines, we’re footsoldiers. We came in from the outside,’ said Harding.

‘Well, why don’t you go join the marines in keeping the Supremacists out of my ship?’

‘They’re already in here We heard them cutting their way in,’ said Mclusky.

‘What are you all still doing in here?’ asked Harding. ‘You should have picked up the relic and left the ship!’

‘We have been evacuating. That’s what we’re doing. It’s a big crew. Didn’t you notice the transports leaving?’

‘So the relic has been evacuated?’

‘What? No! It’s a scrap of fluff that doesn’t mean anything next to my crew!’

‘It means a great deal to our entire civilisation. It’s a symbol of what we’re fighting for.’

‘Pardon me,’ said Valdés, ‘but why are the ammo crews wasting their time disarming the missiles?’

The captain frowned at this remark, and walked over to the comm system.

‘Ammunition teams, I though I told you to evacuate!’

‘But, sir, we’ve only just finished disarming the port ammunition bay. What about the starboard—’

There was suddenly a horrific explosion, rocking the ship and throwing everyone to the floor. The tinny voice on the comm whimpered “never mind”. The captain snapped at them to evacuate.

‘Sir, where is the relic.’

‘It has a shrine above the engine room. Fetch the scrap if you really need to.’ The captain waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

Harding turned to Mclusky and Valdés. ‘I’ll go get the relic, stay here and try to get this lot to evacuate sooner rather than later.’

The hallways and their arrows easily directed  Harding to the engine room.  Its doors where nice and big and torn open by the damage to the ship, allowing Harding easy access and easy exit when he saw the Apostles in there. He peered inside more carefully.  The engine room was on red emergency lighting, and the engine and reactor dominated  the room. The starboard wall was ruined and punctured in several locations. There was a walkway in the middle of the room that allowed access to the reactor, upon which the Apostles stood, attempting to  shut it all down.  They were busy, and their hadn’t posted a guard. With a quick finger and sweeping movement, Harding was able to gun three of them down unaware. The last two were out of his range, and tried to fire back, but he was about to  gun them both down.

There was an access ladder near the back of the walkway near the engine room door, which had a humble label identifying it as the Relic Shrine. Harding climbed the ladder, and he heard a smashing and an alarm going off. He climbed into the Shrine to find that an Apostle had beaten him to it, and had taken the relic.

‘Unhand that relic,  traitor !’ shouted Harding.

‘ Traitor?’ the cyborg said. ‘What makes me a traitor?’

‘You’re civilisation has betrayed the Promise. The Supremacists of Mandira and Khrabrost have turned their backs on humanity!’

‘Oh, you misunderstand us,  heretical meat popsicle.  I assure you, we remember Earth, and have plans for it.  We haven’t abandoned our humanity. We’ve merely divorced it from mortal limitations, while you  Puritans die in your  millions when your bodies betray you, and you expend so much resources fighting the native animals and trying to manually turn this planet into a new Earth. Even the Harmony cranks are smarter than you.

‘ We, unlike either you or the Harmonic mutants, keep true to what humanity is. We stay true to our species, and don’t corrupt ourselves with machinery, or alien  slime . We preserve the old cultures, the ones that we descend from and that brought us here.’

‘Oh, you preserve culture do you? Is that why you heretics brought his, an Old Earth Relic, into a war zone? Where this symbol of Humanity’s origin can easily be destroyed by a ruptured ammunition wing? You disgust me,  you outdated model.’

The Apostle raised its gun. Harding raised his own and fired. It hit the Apostle’s gun and it exploded in its face. Taking advantage of the second of confusion he had bought, Harding threw himself upon the Apostle and tackled it to the ground, where he punched the cyborg’s helmet and metallic skull until blood and transmission fluid spurted out.

He took the relic from the machine’s hand. It was a scrap of leather with a fluorescent yellow fuzz on it.  A plaque on its casing called it a “tennis ball husk” and further explained that it was an integral part of “tennis”, a ritual in which ancient humans would attract mates.  Harding placed the relic in his armour, and took the plaque too.

‘Centurion, are you still there?’ said the captain over the comms system. ‘I need you to do something for me. Get to the reactor controls, and refuel the reactor. Override the safety preventing you from overloaded, and just keep hitting the refuel. Turn the reactor up to full power. Then turn the cooling system off. Destroy the controls so the Supremacists can’t undo it.’

Harding carried out his order, a little disturbed by what the captain was arranging, but ultimately he didn’t care. If the Supremacists were really so divorced from  mortality then they  shouldn’t find this a bother.

After that errand was over, Harding headed back to the bridge.  Mclusky and  Valdés  hadn’t manaed to get them to evacuate, but the captain said he was going to now. He flicked a button on his  chair, and the back of the bridge opened up  to a hidden tram, which he said would take them straight to the escape transports. As they climbed on, the captain assured Harding that all other crew members had been evacuated.

The tram quickly sped too the evacuation transports. Harding made sure he went into the same one as  Mclusky and  Valdés,  which too bridge crew also hopped into. The captain gave a last order that once they were away they were to head straight for the Puritan army to rejoin them, and not look back for anything.


End file.
